King of His Hearts
by Hitsugi Zirkus
Summary: Taking Oz's suggestion, Elliot visits Leo's house. Inside the raven's room, he finds a rather interesting book: Leo's diary. But what's more interesting are the contents inside it... Elly/Leo Sort-of, not-serious sequel to 'Sickness of the Love Variety'


**A/N: **Not much to say, other than...don't take this seriously? :'D Or rather, take it very seriously and just never look at Leo the same 8D Whatever you choose, just please enjoy, laugh a little, then toss this aside and never read it again (no, don't do that last part, I FORBID IT 8'''D).

Inspired by a conversation my twin (**kitty-hel** on dA~) and I had after I published "Sickness of the Love Variety." That in itself should scare you xD

**King of His Hearts**

If Elliot stopped to think about it, he knew he should've seen this coming. At present, it was lunch and Oz was smiling knowingly at him across the table with expectant green eyes.

Elliot gave an annoyed sigh, running a hand through his hair. "Who told you?"

"You insult me, Elly," Oz pouted. "As if I need someone to tell me when one of my friends is being all lovey-dovey. I can tell these things just by looking. You could say I'm an expert at it."

"An expert?" Elliot repeated dryly. He left out the usual part of reprimanding the blond about his nickname, since he knew Oz never listened anyway.

"Yeah, that's how I knew you liked Leo back."

A blush warmed Elliot's cheeks as he stared at him incredulously. "There's no way you could tell that. Dumbass, _I_didn't even know!" he argued indignantly.

"That's what you think," Oz said with a meaningful stare.

"Which statement are you talking about? And anyway, I didn't start any of this. You were there," Elliot pointed out, recalling with almost precise detail the events of a month ago – something that concerned a cafeteria brawl and a seemingly innocent apple. "_Leo _was the one that came out of nowhere..."

"Are you trying to pin something on me? You're the one who's the hothead, as I recall." Elliot jumped as arms slid over his shoulders, his head suddenly cradled in the chest of the boy he most didn't want to see at that moment.

The Nightray sighed, craning his neck up to look back at Leo Baskerville, who was smiling down at him. "Leo, you're really going to have to warn me if you're going to do that!" he exclaimed, unhooking the raven's arms from his neck.

"Honestly, you want me to announce every little thing," Leo sighed as he took a seat. "'Elliot, I'm right behind you,' 'Elliot, I'm going to punch you,' 'Elliot, I'm putting my tongue insi-'"

"Th-that's enough!" the blond said, face turning pink as he caught Oz's interested look.

"So long as you get my point," Leo said with a light shrug before turning to the blond in front of him. "Hello, Oz."

"Hey, Leo. Sooo~," he began in a devious tone that always spelled headaches for Elliot. He leaned in slightly, his voice a whisper. "Have you slept together, yet?"

"EXCUSE ME!" choked Elliot loud enough that people should've turned to stare but by now they were used to this flare of temper... "We've done nothing like that!"

"You haven't? I'm a little disappointed," said Oz, whose eyes were glinting in amusement. Elliot could see it in that stupid Vessalius' face how much he was enjoying this.

Leo plucked up his milk and opened it. "Elliot likes to go slow with this type of thing. He's actually quite a gentleman about it, though. I find it very cute," he teased with a fond smile. "He's always asking if _this_ or _that _feels good."

"Oh, so you have done something, just haven't gone all the way? I see, I see! Elly, do you really care so much~?" sang Oz, lacing his fingers under his chin. "Most people would never guess it, but I always had faith you were a softie at heart!"

There was a small thud as Elliot smacked his head on the table. In a way – no, most definitely, it was worse knowing both of them than it was before when he just knew Oz. They both knew how to annoy him, albeit in different ways, but together it was almost more than Elliot could deal with.

"But surely you've at least been to each other's house, right, Elliot?" asked Oz.

The blond slowly shook his head. "No, it's just Leo coming to visit me at my place."

Oz stared incredulously across the table at the Nightray. "What? It's been a month but you haven't even been to his house?"

"What's the big deal?" Elliot demanded, his fuse shortening dangerously. "And how did you know it's been a month? You better not be stalking me, Vessalius!"

"I have a gift, I told you, a gift!" Oz reminded impatiently with a wave of his hand. Giving a stern look, he declared decidedly, "You're going to Leo's. Today."

"And again, I ask what the big deal is!" He was stopped from his rant when a warm hand suddenly found his own, long pianist fingers tracing over his skin. That was one other thing that had changed over the month of their relationship. Gradually, the raven stopped literally hitting on him, which was a great relief to the blond when his whole body was sore from Leo's abuse. There were times Leo slipped anyway and would randomly kick him to the ground, but he always apologized in his own way with a rather distracting make-out session.

_I've accepted abuse for a slip of tongue... _If he thought too much about it, he could just feel his pride slide down an icy hill.

Elliot's temper rose, but he couldn't bring himself to get mad, his frustration and embarrassment instead shading his face red as he locked gazes with Leo.

The raven tucked some of his unruly hair behind his ear, as he smiled affectionately at Elliot. "I actually like that idea. It's my fault for never inviting you over," he confessed. "This gives it a good excuse, don't you think?"

"I... You don't have to," Elliot said, but it came out low like a mumble. "I mean, I'm sure you've got your reasons."

Leo shrugged. "Eh, a few small ones, but I don't want to wait anymore. So how about it? Want to come over after school? You can even sleep over if you want."

"...Fine, I'll go over. Just because the shorty keeps looking at me all creepy. SO STOP THAT!" he hissed at Oz, who looked way too cordial with his hands cupping his face and a wide grin on his lips.

"Ah, can you blame me when I'm actually witnessing Elliot Nightray yielding to his lover's wishes~!"

And there was only one way for Elliot to end that sentence, and that was to get up and send Oz Vessalius to the next decade.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Leo lived rather close to the school, which explained why he always managed to get to class on time even though he told Elliot he woke up only thirty minutes before the bell rang. ("Well, no wonder you're such a ditz in the morning!" "...Not my fault that trashcan was in my way..."). They walked to the raven's house in comfortable silence, with Elliot always casting glances at him only to have his heart skip a beat whenever Leo caught him staring. The fond chuckle that followed never failed to make his face burn.<p>

Leo was grabbing his sleeve then, nodding at a house they were passing by. "Well, that's it, right here."

"Your house?" It looked normal enough – a single story with a gray roof and a slightly overgrown lawn filled with wildflowers.

Leo stepped towards the front door. The scent of lavender immediately radiated outside from within the house when he opened the door and the two stepped inside.

"You can bother with looking around if you want," Leo offered indifferently, kicking off his shoes next to the entrance. "But there's not much to see. I'm going to my room."

"Your parents aren't home?" Elliot asked curiously. Despite the raven's dry attitude, he found his ice-blue eyes glancing all around – at the floral wallpaper, the small upright piano against the wall, the photos littering the mantle of the fireplace...

Leo was already a distance away, his voice coming from down the hallway next to Elliot. "Mom is probably outside fiddling with the garden. She likes it, but hates that my dad never takes care of the lawn. She's a botanist."

_Hunh, Vanessa might like that, _Elliot thought absently, finally following the raven into a room in the hallway. It was fair in size, with a bookshelf against one wall and a bed on the opposite one, next to a curtained window. All over the place were books – on shelves, teetering on the edge of a dresser, littered on the floor with music sheets – various bookmarks sticking out of each one and Elliot recognized the stamps of several public libraries on them.

"Okay, really, how much do you read? How can you even keep up with all these and know when they're due?" he asked incredulously, picking up one novel he was familiar with.

Leo took off his glasses, placing them down on his dresser. "I have a calender on the back of my door marking the due dates. It's quite convenient, since my memory never really serves me well." This was said with a laugh as he turned to Elliot, his dark eyes so much more visible than they were before.

Ignoring the light blush staining his cheeks, he put the book back down and said, "This feels a little weird."

"Don't be that way," Leo laughed. "Make yourself at home. You can lay on my bed, if you want. Or join my mom outside, or play the piano." He shrugged. "Whatever you want."

"What are you going to do?" the blond inquired.

"Oh, I'll be back in a few minutes. Meanwhile, you can do whatever you like." He gave a little wave as he turned and disappeared down the hallway.

And Elliot walked idly around the room, trying to find something else that wasn't a book. Over by one corner was a CD rack of classical Romantic artists, most of which Elliot recognized – Brahms, Gobbi, Chopin... He straightened up and went to the dresser where Leo put his glasses. Curious, he picked up the full-moon specs and looked through the lens. His vision was the same either way – with or without them.

_Faker. _He peered around with the glasses held at length before his face, at the shelves and walls and sheet music... He stopped, freezing when his eyes caught the cover of a red book laying on the floor under the corner of the bed. Frowning, he put the glasses back and went towards the book – only when he got close enough, he noticed that it wasn't a book at all. It's binding was different and the front of it had the word 'diary' written on it in glossy black letters.

"No fucking way," Elliot breathed quietly, widening his eyes. Leo couldn't...really be that type of guy, could he? The kind that actually kept a diary and...and wrote his feelings down in there?

The temptation was too great. Quickly, Elliot peeked his head down the hallway, but he detected no movement whatsoever. Returning to the bed, the blond pried the pages apart, his inner righteous bitch beating the crap out of his conscience for doing such a lousy job.

But then Elliot saw it. Curls and loops coming together to spell out a word... A word, a name, written in flawless cursive all over the back of the cover.

_"Elliot."_

His name. Written repeatedly.

This was so not happening. Just...just a one-time thing, right? Right? Just to convince himself of this, the blond turned to the first page, marked some seven months before. At the very least, Elliot was glad it didn't start with a "Dear Diary." There was something about his mom putting her new flowers into his room... Minor comments on spring weather...

Wait.

There, his name written, separate from the rest of the words by a unique characteristic so obvious Elliot felt like smacking himself from not noticing it before – his name was surrounded by _hearts_.

No-!

Elliot flipped through the diary quicker now. He soon realized wherever his name was, hearts were sure to follow, and vice-versa. For sure he passed by at least four full pages of just his name printed down in pen with different fonts. "Elliot Nightray" was encased in one large heart in the middle of the page.

All lovey-dovey. Just like Oz said.

Feeling like his face couldn't possibly get any redder, Elliot flipped through the dates until he came to one labeled a month ago, when Leo confessed to him... His blue eyes scrolled through the page, reading quickly...

_"...never been kissed before. But I also felt stupid for worrying about whether or not I was good at kissing, when I should try to remember all I could about it. But you know, I think Elliot liked it, too. His tongue was sleek and it was inside my mouth before I even..."_

_SKIPPING THAT! _Elliot thought in a fit of embarrassment, continuing down - this page by far had the most hearts and repeats of his name.

_"...beat the crap out of him before, sure, but after he said and did all those things to me, I think I really did want to bash his skull in with a brick. My heart was pounding so hard like it always does. Sometimes it feels wonderful, but most of the time it just hurts. Makes me want to break his arm. Ah, but he tells me there are better things to do than that type of stuff. His solution was kissing, as I remember. I think I could get used to it..."_

"I can't believe he wrote these things...," Elliot said in stunned disbelief. The end of the entry was marked with the blond's name next to a flower he recognized to be statice.

"...Sentimental bastard..."

"I'm really not, only in things like my diary. But I suppose that's my fault, since I thought they were _personal._"

_Uh-oh_. Elliot jumped, snapping the book closed as he turned to face Leo, who was narrowing his eyes dangerously at him.

"No use trying to cover it up. I saw you."

"I... What the hell is this?" the blond demanded, opening the diary up to one of the pages that had his name written over and over.

Almost instantly Leo's pale cheeks went a deep red. "That's nothing."

Elliot frowned, holding the diary out at length. "This is something."

"No, it's not."

"Leo," Elliot said slowly, begging the raven to see through the scope of a normal human being. "You wrote my name with hearts. _Hearts._"

"They're not-"

"HEARTS!" Elliot repeated.

The raven sighed deeply, face still red with a blush. "It could be worse. This could be a burn book or something and I would want to kill you."

"That makes no difference! You wanting to kill me is how I know you still _love _me!"

Leo paused at that, considering. "...I guess that's true." He scratched his cheek, looking down sheepishly. "But it's just a diary, okay? It's not like I thought you'd ever see it. As a matter of fact, it's not like I ever thought you'd be standing here in my room one day."

Elliot blinked in surprise, lowering the diary. He hadn't thought about what Leo would think in the situation. Mostly he assumed that whatever he thought was weird Leo wouldn't blink an eyes about. It was...the first time he saw the raven so embarrassed about something. Looking at his red face, though, with those downcast midnight purple eyes, Elliot couldn't help but admit...the expression was...

"You're so cute."

SMACK!

...The blond wondered if he should be surprised to find himself on his back on Leo's bed with his nose stinging so much tears were building up in his eyes. He grunted, cradling his nose as he sat up to glare daggers at his tormentor.

"You punched me!"

"It's not my fault, you idiot!" Leo protested, his fist still raised. "You called me something like 'cute,' so OF COURSE I had to hit you!"

Elliot opened his mouth to protest, but then sighed, nose still stinging – it was like he had a heartbeat there, and he was pretty sure that wasn't normal. But that was neither here nor there and instead he laughed, bonking his forehead with the diary still in his hand. "You're such an abusive person."

Leo made something almost like a pout as he walked over to Elliot, getting on top of him. "I thought you knew that when you decided to go out with me," he pointed out.

"So you know I love you anyway, right?"

"Then you shouldn't think it's creepy what I did in my diary."

Elliot considered, then held up the book. "You put hearts."

"For the love of-! Is that all you're fixated on? You know what?" Leo reached into his pocket, still sitting on Elliot's lap as he produced a pen from his pants.

The blond eyed it carefully. "What are you doing?"

Leo cocked a brow suggestively, all the previous innocent shyness gone from his face, replaced with a cruel, teasing countenance that rivaled Oz's. "If you don't like hearts so much, then perhaps I should cover you in them until you can no longer complain about it."

Elliot widened his eyes, attempting to shove the raven off of him. "Y-you're not serious! That's...that's not even the thing here!" he argued. "You just went schoolgirl on me and wrote my name everywhere on your diary!" He froze at the feeling of the ballpoint against his collarbone. Slowly, it traced over his skin, and without even looking Elliot knew it to be the outline of a perfect heart.

"And you must be punished for looking into it," Leo declared, a smirk on his face as he kissed the mark. "Now instead of your name, it'll be your body." He reached down, pushing up the hem of Elliot's shirt slightly to touch the hot skin. Elliot gasped and the raven chuckled against his neck. "I think we should go with Oz's suggestion, don't you think? Let's make it _all _of your body."

"L-Leo, you're crazy!" the blond mumbled feebly, watching with a blush as another heart was put around his belly button. The pen tickled, but it made an...interesting electric shock go between his legs...

It was as if the raven could sense his thoughts. "I think you'll like this, Elliot~"

"H-Hell no! Get off of me right now!"

"Hey, be careful what you say. You don't want to look _bad _in my diary, now do you?" the raven lilted, putting the end of the pen at Elliot's lips in a 'be quiet and let me have my way with you' gesture.

Surprise turned Elliot's cheeks pink. "Don't you dare-!"

"Oh, but you know I will." Leo put several hearts on the blond's warm cheek.

"Stop that! Stop putting those damn hearts on me!"

"Aha, no chance~!"

Quite honestly, Elliot was wondering if, by the end of the evening, he'd tolerate hearts better...or if he'd just have flashbacks of trauma when he looked at them. When he was with Leo Baskerville, he could never be certain, only that either way, the raven was going to have an _interesting_ diary entry tonight...

* * *

><p><strong>Ending AN: **I HAVE NO REGRETS! -stabbed-

Review, perhaps? Maybe? Yes? To make me a happy person that will love you forever?


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